This is this second of a three part post in which two people discuss the difficulty of presenting history and culture in classrooms.
Adam: So, you’re saying that learning more about Western culture makes students more able to appreciate other cultures? Do you have any proof that that actually happens? Because, at least anecdotally, it seems more like teaching Western culture teaches students to appreciate Western culture. Also, you’re saying that they should learn about Western culture because they are in it. Isn’t it a little arrogant to assume that all of your students actually do or should belong to that tradition?
Jessica: What does it even mean to belong to a tradition? I don’t know. Even if you wanted to simply present traditions and let students choose how to identify themselves, you’re putting yourself within a Western tradition of self-determination. That’s why it’s so hard.
Look, take language for instance. One language isn’t better than another, but it’s still better to learn one or two languages well, to dwell in them, instead of trying to hover outside them all. And you couldn’t do it anyway.
You’re born in one particular place into a particular community that speaks a particular language. A well-educated person will probably try to learn a few more, but always for the purpose of communicating using them. Otherwise what would be the point? And that takes time and dedication and more time. You have to sink into it and take it for what it is.
It’s true that the more languages you learn, the easier each new one becomes. And blessed are the bi-lingual by chance of birth and situation. But I don’t expect every student to become a true polyglot. I want them all to be able to speak their native tongue well, and hopefully at least one more with some degree of fluency. You have to live a language to learn it, and culture is the same. The one you learn naturally is the one that you’re in. The deal with Western Culture right now is that we’re all questioning whether we are in it, or whether we want to be in it, or what else there is, or what’s next. And perhaps some people are more “in it” than others. But as a teacher you can’t just say, “I’m going to teach everything and nothing about history.” You have to teach something, and that something has to be coherent, and you have to know a little bit about it yourself. Hence, for better or for worse, all the dead white guys.
Adam: I still think that sounds funny.
Jessica: Me too. And I don’t want you to think we never read women or non-Europeans. We do, but their thoughts don’t tend to resonate through our language and culture as much, or at least not in identifiable ways, NOT because they didn’t have the stature and eloquence, obviously, but because their voices were suppressed and their impact was often unacknowledged and often effaced.
I think this is the part that makes me most uncomfortable right now. Some people would say, I think, that we have a moral obligation to equalize how we read history and literature in the Western tradition, to study the stories of women and non-Europeans with equal time and equal attention, that changing the way we study history in that way would make our culture now more equal. I can see some sense in that.
On the other hand, though, part of understanding history is understanding mental frameworks, what was influencing people, what everyone was talking about, what the “dominant discourse” was. And I think the equalizing thing–it might result in a somewhat anachronistic lens, teaching students to judge the past by our standards instead of entering into a a mindset which we may not now share.
Maybe there’s a time and place for both methods. My instinct is that it’s better to learn the “greats” first (in grade school and middle school at least, if not high school and early college as well), even if you don’t think that “greats” is ultimately the best way of thinking about history and literature, for no other reason than that it’s easier to understand primary documents later if you know “major” trends in ideas and “major” historical figures and events, how people were thinking and what they were talking about. Then, having understood those things and appreciated them for what they were and knowing what they were not, go about filling in the gaps and righting the wrongs.
Adam: Well, that’s good, I guess. It’s just, when you see it all on the timeline, it’s overwhelming.
Jessica: Yeah, white male dominance has been overwhelming in our cultural heritage. Who doesn’t want Shakespeare’s sister up on the timeline, too? But the best we can do sometimes is love Shakespeare for what he is rather than criticizing what he’s not, and put Virginia Woolf up when she arrives.
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CC image courtesy of Andres Rueda on Flickr.